My Suspicion on Bajoran Uniforms

[Arpy]

Hey,the Bajorans are aliens.Maybe the uniform colors have more to do with caste,birthplace or any of a myriad other reasons.Given Kira’s initial hostility to Starfleet it would seem a stretch that the newly minted Bajoran military would base their uniform colours on Starfleet.

The may be aliens but the producers likely had Trek costume conventions in mind. They’re also no longer caste based, as they no longer follow their pre-Occupation d’jarras(sp?). Plus, Kira was complaining in the premier that the Provisional Governent was too gung-ho Federation, that they’re “giving it all away.” Maybe in-universe the colors were an attempt to suggest that they’re interested in membership?

 

[The Wormhole]

Eddington arrives with the Defiant - the two are inextricably linked. Starfleet's happy to give Sisko discretion over who runs security on the promenade and the station, but they want one of their own to look after their warship. The Romulans probably insisted on beefed up security for their cloaking device too.

Starfleet suspicion of Odo's reliability is apparent in The Maquis, so Eddington's arrival nicely builds on that. Obviously Eddington's betrayal (ironically to the Maquis) would have been pretty good evidence that Odo was perfectly trustworthy and Sisko was best placed to choose his security officer. Plus by then Worf is on the station and literally lives on the Defiant. It's deemed safe enough.

It isn't in The Maquis we learn Starfleet is suspicious of Odo, it is in The Search. Indeed, upon learning of Eddington being assigned to the station, Odo's immediate reaction is to resign:

EDDINGTON: Well, I am here to make friends. I'm Lieutenant Commander Michael Eddington, Starfleet Security.
KIRA: Major Kira Nerys.
ODO: Odo. Head of station security. May I ask what your function is here, Commander?
SISKO: There will be a complete mission briefing at eighteen hundred hours, but be prepared to depart the station at oh seven hundred tomorrow morning. Dismissed.
(Everyone leaves except Sisko and Odo)
ODO: You needn't brace yourself to give me unpleasant news, Commander, I'll save you the trouble. I've been relieved as Chief of Security.
(Odo stalks out without waiting for an answer.)

[Corridor]

SISKO: Odo, wait. You've not been relieved. You're still in charge of all non-Starfleet security matters aboard this station.
ODO: And what about matters that are Starfleet?
SISKO: In those areas, you'll coordinate your efforts with Commander Eddington.
ODO: Coordinate is another way of saying I'll report to him.
SISKO: I'm sorry, Odo. This wasn't my idea.
ODO: I'm sure it wasn't. You were just following orders.
SISKO: An order I strongly disagreed with. I did everything I could to fight this. I even took it to the Chief of Starfleet Security herself. But their decision was final.
ODO: May I ask why?
SISKO: There were some concerns regarding several recent security breaches.
ODO: If I was given the authority I asked for instead of being tied to Starfleet regulations, there wouldn't have been any security breaches.
SISKO: Odo, your resistance to following Starfleet regulations is part of the problem.
ODO: I think there might be a simpler explanation, Commander. I think Starfleet decided to bring in someone they could trust, someone besides the shape-shifter.
SISKO: This is not a racial issue, Odo. I understand how you must feel, and I want
ODO: Commander, I don't require your understanding. My resignation will be logged within the hour.

If Eddington's assignment was strictly related to the Defiant, why was it necessary to for them to make disparaging comments about Odo's performance and conduct to justify it?

 

[Tomalak]

It isn't in The Maquis we learn Starfleet is suspicious of Odo, it is in The Search. Indeed, upon learning of Eddington being assigned to the station, Odo's immediate reaction is to resign:

Admiral of the week questions Sisko's judgement in trusting Odo after the Bok'Nor gets blown up under his watch. I don't recall how much of the conversation is heard on screen, but the whole exchange is reproduced in the DS9 Companion.

Basically she tells Sisko he's making a mistake, but he ends it by saying "Maybe, but it's my mistake".

If Eddington's assignment was strictly related to the Defiant, why was it necessary to for them to make disparaging comments about Odo's performance and conduct to justify it?

Not necessarily strictly, but the Defiant is an obvious change in circumstances. Eddington literally arrives on the ship, the message is clear - Starfleet doesn't trust Odo to guard their ship, and the decision has been taken out of Sisko's hands.

Those "recent security breaches" Sisko cites? Sounds like the Bok'Nor incident was pretty important in their thinking.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Eddington being assigned came right after the emergence of the Dominion, so the security of the station is a greater concern to Starfleet, being their first line of defence if the Jem'Hadar came through the wormhole--this was also when the rest of the senior staff were going to be going through to make first contact with the Founders, so Starfleet probably also felt the need to have a command-level officer onboard to take charge in their absence. Also the Defiant was still an experimental ship with technology not employed on other ships at the time, as well as the cloaking device on loan from the Romulans (T'Rul does seem to have a working relationship with Eddington and requests the additional security from him not Odo--Romulans don't seem to have a high opinion of Bajorans, Cretak comments that she is surprised at how efficient Kira is).

 

[The Wormhole]

Not necessarily strictly, but the Defiant is an obvious change in circumstances. Eddington literally arrives on the ship, the message is clear - Starfleet doesn't trust Odo to guard their ship, and the decision has been taken out of Sisko's hands.

"Guarding" the Defiant wouldn't really be Odo's responsibility anyway. It's a Starfleet ship, the Bajoran Militia have no jurisdiction aboard it. Note that most of the time, Kira had to follow Worf's orders when abaoard the Defiant, even though on the station she outranks him.

 

[Tosk]

Note that most of the time, Kira had to follow Worf's orders when abaoard the Defiant, even though on the station she outranks him.

When did Worf ever give Kira an order?

 

[Tomalak]

When did Worf ever give Kira an order?

There was a whole thread on this. In short, never. Whenever they're both on the ship, she takes precedence, for example in Tears of the Prophets.

The whole thing comes from Apocalypse Rising, which has a line about when Sisko's away, Kira commands the station and Worf commands the Defiant. It was the intention of the producers that Worf is first officer of the Defiant, but in reality Kira is still his boss.

 

[Tosk]

That's what I thought but figured I might be forgetting something. That Worf line always came across to me as Worf being a jerk more than a fact to take into account. He wants to get his way and makes a claim that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Worf may command the Defiant sometimes, but it doesn't mean he doesn't answer to people. To my way of thinking, Kira doesn't argue the point 'cause she's already sick of the direction of the conversation. So she switches back to basics, reminding Worf that Sisko left specific orders.

 

[Timo]

The issue of commanding the Defiant is relatively moot, because Sisko commands her.

When Sisko is absent, there's always a story behind the absence. When Worf is there in "Rules of Engagement", Kira isn't. When Kira is there in "Sons of Mogh", Worf isn't. Both times the absence (and the presence) has solid political reasoning behind it, and is at the whim of the absent Sisko. And when Dax commands the ship in "Behind the Lines", neither Worf nor Kira is there, again for a reason.

It is really only in "Tears of the Prophets" that we run into a situation where Sisko unexpectedly goes down and Kira takes over while Worf does not. In the corresponding "Starship Down", Kira didn't take over; Worf did.

So do we decide the case on our sample of one against one? By tossing a coin? Or do we just declare the sample size too small?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

When did Worf ever give Kira an order?

Paradise Lost, off the top of my head.

There was a whole thread on this. In short, never. Whenever they're both on the ship, she takes precedence, for example in Tears of the Prophets.

Actually, Tears of the Prophets is the only time that happened.

 

[Tosk]

Paradise Lost, off the top of my head.

Ah, the Lakota fight. Thanks, I'll check it out.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Paradise Lost was a Starfleet civil war (essentially), so it makes sense for Worf to command the Defiant on the way to Earth, had Kira been in the big chair there could've been fallout for Bajor and their petition to join the Federation--it's definitely more of a PR issue than anything else.

In Starship Down, though she had been on the Defiant longer, Worf is more familiar with Starfleet tech so would be the better candidate to help with repairs and has the rank to take command as well.

As for "Tears of the Prophets" when the Major puts her foot down and takes command, whose going to object? Anyone?

That's how I reason it anyway.

 

[STEPhon IT]

There was a whole thread on this. In short, never. Whenever they're both on the ship, she takes precedence, for example in Tears of the Prophets.

The whole thing comes from Apocalypse Rising, which has a line about when Sisko's away, Kira commands the station and Worf commands the Defiant. It was the intention of the producers that Worf is first officer of the Defiant, but in reality Kira is still his boss.

It doesn't make much sense for a tremendous first officer like Kira to be a subordinate to a lower IQ officer like Worf. Worf commanding the Defiant over Kira was a terrible idea; I remember her sharing her thoughts to Tom Riker about what she would've done if she had the Defiant during the Occupation. It put chills down my spine because this officer had ideas of how to use that heavily, armored hulk.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It doesn't make much sense for a tremendous first officer like Kira to be a subordinate to a lower IQ officer like Worf. Worf commanding the Defiant over Kira was a terrible idea; I remember her sharing her thoughts to Tom Riker about what she would've done if she had the Defiant during the Occupation. It put chills down my spine because this officer had ideas of how to use that heavily, armored hulk.

That's an alternate timeline fanfic waiting to be written, a spatial anomaly transports the Defiant back to a pre-liberated Bajor and is discovered by Kira, who leads a small crew on a mission of revenge, uniting her people and reclaiming their system from the Cardassians.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Hmm. The Bajorans by definition are peaceful people but they've learned to defend themselves by any means necessary, but I doubt a fan written tale of them casting revenge on their occupiers would work IMO. Now, working with some Cardassians to see the light and understanding how brutal they were like in the episode "Duet" would be something I would encourage a writer to explore.

 

[Tosk]

How are Bajorans by defintion a peaceful people?

 

[Timo]

Well, they'd have to be. They apparently want nothing to do with strange places and strange people - in all of their hundreds of millennia of civilization and city-building, they haven't as much as surveyed the Janitza Mountains, let alone colonized their paradise fifth moon. So they won't get to fight anybody else unless said else comes calling. And apparently nobody ever does.

And if they fought between themselves, they really couldn't be hundreds of millennia old as an urban civilization...

Both the diaspora and resistance aspects of the Cardassian occupation must have been extremely upsetting for these weird alien people.

(Okay, the other interpretation here is that Bajorans are crazier than Klingons, and tear apart their civilization every hundred and thirty years or so, which is the reason they have never achieved anything beyond cities of clay. And if something is achieved, it is promptly forgotten in the next Armageddon, with blueprints of lightsails and maps of Janitza Mountains misplaced, buried in rubble or deliberately burned. Perhaps they have a Warrior Caste for the carnage, and a Fireman Caste for the book-burning? That'd be stability of sorts, too.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Once upon a time the Bajorans were peaceful but five decades of occupation put a stop to that. In "Defiant", Kira herself says that she'd essentially go on a bloody rampage if she'd had such a ship at her disposal.

 

[flandry84]

I was surprised that DS9 never really dealt with the issue of the Bajoran diaspora.It was my impression from the “Ensign Ro” episode that the Bajoran refugees had spread far and wide inside and outside the Federation.

 

[Tomalak]

DS9 kind of skirts around the occupation. The model is pretty much the occupation of France - space Nazis, collaborators, resistance fighters, deportations and death camps.

The resistance, like in France, was pretty small and ineffective. They were an irritant to the occupiers, but ultimately outside factors lead to the withdrawal. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Cardassians leave at the same time they're negotiating the treaty with the Federation.

It's never really stated, probably to feed the resistance myth of Bajor to restore some pride. This happened in France after the war, when the number of people who claimed to be part of the resistance far outstripped the reality.

There's lots of talk about collaborators, but for most Bajorans the occupation was probably more like living in Vichy France. There would have been shortages and hardships, governed by a Bajoran regime, but they probably would have rarely have seen a Cardassian. The Cardassians don't seem to interfere with the Bajoran religion. Kai Opaka makes difficult choices but ultimately remains a unifying figure for all Bajorans.

Kira isn't a reliable narrator for the occupation. She was a resistance fighter and didn't have a particularly nuanced view of things, and is forced to confront this in the series. Duet and The Collaborator are great episodes for this.